There are some things I understand about kickoffunited.com. They have created a new forum for discussing KO2 and they want to continue to develop KO2 Road to Europe or Final Whistle into KO2 Evolution. Sounds awesome! Looks like there are some cool topics there, although I don’t see much that hasn't already been covered here on the KOA ad nauseum.

Here’s where I get lost:

KOU is branded as “the new community” on their social media ads, but parts of the forum appears to be set-up as a branch of the KOA. Further, there appears to be a plan to create their own rankings, based on all previous KOA World Cup games.

Seems like it is more than just a friendly KOA forum. Looks like they want to have their cake and eat it too. Otherwise, if there is a problem with the KOA rankings, why not come to this forum and engage in a creative, constructive discussion for how to improve them?

So I am seeking answers to the following questions. Perhaps Danny could answer them.

- Is the KOU intended to be part of the KOA?- If it is not intended to be part of the KOA, then why is there a need to create a ranking of KOA players?- If it is intended to be part of the KOA, is the intent of the KOU to at some point break off, and perhaps host an alternate WC?

If the answer to the last question is yes, then I suspect the wonderful WC tradition we have is going to die. We are a bunch of late-30s to 40-somethings people that love KO2. There’s not many of us left. We love it so much that we spend hundreds to thousands of Euros every year getting together to play it. Is it worth risking ruining that?

I think the idea behind is to create the definitive version of Kick Off 2, starting from Final Whistle.I imagine in the KOA there are few people that cannot talk about KO2 modifications so easily, they can take it personally, hence the new forum.I suppose they want to organize tournaments with the new Kick Off Evolution and this will not be possible here in the KOA as well.

the rankings of the last world cup is just a test of an algorithm dino has made for rankings for evolution, it's definitely not trying to muscle in on any koa rankings, he just wanted a real situation to test it out properly.

It was initially made cause some felt that they weren't allowed freedom of speech on the koa forums, rightly or wrongly... it certainly wasn't built as an opponent, just another place, but it quickly turned into the evolution and online project, but ofc, there will be talk of the original kick off 2 too

There will ofc be some reference to the koa in some topics as a lot of the members are members of both and are very interested in both formats, hell, Steve C is a global moderator here and the only moderator there too. For any koa related topics on there, like tournaments, they direct to the koa pages, so hopefully it will actually widen the net to catch new kick off players and bring them here.

There may very well be tournaments in the future, but only based on kick off evolution, not ko2 as we play here... so it is having the cake and eating it, but a different flavour. I'm certain that people who're interested in both will attend both, people who're only interested in the original will just attend koa events... and that's the way it should be, no one there will be trying to take away members, competitions or even interest from the koa.

I'm a member of both and am excited by both, i love the vintage ko2 but I'm also very keen to see how a community can build an updated version too.

i hope this answers your questions thor, honestly, it's nothing like a rival or trying to start any war, it's not a 'us and them' situation and no talk of anything like that will be tolerated on there, it's just for a different direction of the game... come n make an account and have some input

thor wrote:- Is the KOU intended to be part of the KOA?- If it is not intended to be part of the KOA, then why is there a need to create a ranking of KOA players?- If it is intended to be part of the KOA, is the intent of the KOU to at some point break off, and perhaps host an alternate WC?

I agree with Thor, these points are key.

While it is perfectly alright for anyone to create a different group were they would feel more comfortable, no matter the reason, this KOU rankings with KOA players and KOA results may go a little far. Also was nasty, funny and sad altogether finding the other day, at midnight, that I belonged to the KOU fb group. I had to modify my privacy settings not to be added again.

Do whatever you want to do, be whatever you want to be, just do not act as if you want to drag us by force. Go your own way.

In the future maybe we can collaborate, or at least we do not have to be enemies

I don't really know how facebook works tbh, but I'm sure no one intended to force anything on anyone... maybe that's just facebook issues... but I think nasty is a little far fetched as for the other questions, i think they've been covered, if you have anything else to ask specifically, just ask

Thank you. Like I said in my post, I think it is awesome that there is a desire to continue to develop a 25 year old computer game. For some of us, like me, the original is perfect as is, but I have no problem with that, of course. I think all this new-found energy for all things Kick Off is awesome, and my hope is that it will keep us all on a positive trajectory.

I think why it has been difficult for some to have those discussions here on KOA in the past is that it is often discussed as modifications to the classic KO2 World Cup software. That is, to many, like swearing in church. I suspect if KO Evolution had its own sub-forum here, like Active Soccer, it would be quite popular, and not controversial.

Now, I had some simple yes/no questions, and got a book in return Let me try to summarize what I now understand:

kickoffunited is not part of, or a rival to KOA. They do not intend to replace the KOA, or publicly defame it. They do not intend to organize KO2 tournaments or World Cups to compete with KOA tournaments (this is a lose-lose). They will organize their own KOE and KOR tournaments. This is great news, but I would like a formal confirmation of this.